This Might Happen Someday (short story)
This Might Happen Someday was a short story by Delilah H. Smith written in 2022 for Jenny Everywhere Day. It was notable for its peculiar style, including multiple possibilities for every element and implication of the worldbuilding and overtly acknowledging the story's nature as fiction in narration, with the goal of making the story seem, as much as possible, like something which might occur in whatever the world of 3001 turns out to be in the real world.
Contents
Plot
In the year 3001, in their shared apartment “overlooking the rings of Saturn”, friends Jenny and Jennifer Nolan are passing the time together when Jenny announces she has perused the entire thousand year of accumulated Jenny Everywhere stories. Jennifer is impressed both that she did it at all and that it only took twenty-five years. Jennifer then produces a box and wishes Jenny a happy birthday; within are a scarf and goggles. The idea occurs to them that they might consider themselves the closest thing “the real world” has to versions of Jenny Everywhere and Jenny Nowhere, with their encyclopedic knowledge of Jenny fictions making for a passable analogue for a “real” Jenny's ability to call on her other selves' memories, although neither of them quite takes it seriously. Backing off from the philosophical problems of possibly being fictional characters, the two head off on a new adventure. The narration is uncertain whether they were using a VR system, whether interdimensional travel has in fact been discovered by then, or whether, just perhaps, this forms the first occurrence of Jenny properly shifting even though that's not supposed to be possible…
Worldbuilding
Universes
- The story takes place in what is intended to be a future version of the real world — emphatically identified from the get go as “Our world, in the year 3001”. The description of this universe is vague and contains multiple options for some details, in an effort at “plausibility” referenced by the title. For example, it is suggested that humanity has outgrown “violent conflict and capitalism and scarcity”, leading to such themes becoming less prevalent as drivers of conflict in fiction, but Jennifer merely contrasts this with “what we've got now” without elaborating. It is mentioned unequivocally that “anyone in this time period could look however they pleased”, with aesthetic customisation of one's appearance being commonplace, although only a fraction people do anything weirder than Jenny's starry eyes, and that “old age, war and starvation”, as well as copyright, have long passed into history.
Jenny Everywhere
- Jenny has existed as a fictional character for a thousand years in this universe. Fictional Jennies on record include a Giant Robot Jenny, an Elf Jenny, a Dog Jenny and a one-eyed tentacle alien Jenny.
- The story focuses on a girl called Jenny Evans, a dark-skinned woman in a blue dress. She's been a fan of the fictional Jenny Everywhere for a while, and ends up suspecting, alongside her friend and frequent rival Jennifer Nolan, that the two could be considered their world's Jenny Everywhere and Jenny Nowhere, with Jenny's knowledge of all Jenny Everywhere fiction standing in for Jenny's possession of all her other selves' memories. It is suggested, but not confirmed, that the final scene may represent her discovering that she indeed has shifting powers. Notably, it is not confirmed whether her name really is “Jenny Nolan” or if this is just a cultural localisation of how her name comes across in the 31st century relative to how the name “Jenny Evans” comes across to 21st-century readers; a more eccentric possibility, “Jeni Johano”, is given but not confirmed either.
Jenny Nowhere
- Jenny's best friend and roommate is the “fiercely competitive” Jennifer Nolan, who used to by “Jenny Nolan” until she started hanging out with Jenny Evans, necessitating disambiguation. She is “pale and blonde and short-haired”, and wears a black jumpsuit. As is apparently common in this time period, she modified her eyes on aesthetic grounds, making them “pitch-black, with rings of stars for irises”.
Continuity
- The list of non-human Jennies includes “Giant Robot Jenny” (previously mentioned in PROSE: The Grand Multiverse Hotel), Elf Jenny (seen in COMIC: Governing Council), Dog Jenny (seen in PROSE: Paying It Forward), and one-eyed tentacle alien Jenny (seen in an illustration by Nelson Evergreen, used for the Jenny Everywhere Caption Contest).
Behind the scenes
Read online
The story is available online.
